Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins (47 page)
Read Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins Online
Authors: James Runcie
The Grantchester Mysteries
Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death
Sidney Chambers, the Vicar of Grantchester, is a thirty-two year old bachelor. Sidney is an unconventional clergyman and can go where the police cannot.
Together with his roguish friend Inspector Geordie Keating, Sidney inquires into the suspect suicide of a Cambridge solicitor, a scandalous jewellery theft at a New Year’s Eve dinner party, the unexplained death of a well-known jazz promoter and a shocking art forgery, the disclosure of which puts a close friend in danger. Sidney discovers that being a detective, like being a clergyman, means that you are never off duty...
‘While the diminutive priest detective created by G. K. Chesterton led the way, Sidney Chambers is set fair to be a worthy successor ... this is quite an achievement’
Daily Mail
‘At last, an Anglican Father Brown ... Each tale is beautifully crafted and surprising. I hope for many more volumes’
A. N. Wilson,
Spectator
‘A charmingly effective tale of detection ... evoking oodles of churchy village atmosphere, circa 1953, provides a satisfyingly old-fashioned read!’
The Times
Sidney Chambers and The Perils of the Night
1955. Canon Sidney Chambers, loveable priest and part-time detective, is back. Accompanied by his faithful Labrador, Dickens, and the increasingly exasperated Inspector Geordie Keating, Sidney is called to investigate the unexpected fall of a Cambridge don from the roof of King’s College Chapel, a case of arson at a glamour photographer’s studio and the poisoning of Zafar Ali, Grantchester’s finest spin bowler.
Alongside his sleuthing, Sidney has other problems. Can he decide between his dear friend, the glamorous socialite Amanda Kendall and Hildegard Staunton, the beguiling German widow? To make up his mind Sidney takes a trip abroad, only to find himself trapped in a web of international espionage just as the Berlin Wall is going up.
‘While the diminutive priest detective created by G. K. Chesterton led the way, Sidney Chambers is set fair to be a worthy successor ... this is quite an achievement’
Daily Mail
‘The coziest of cozy murder mysteries’
New York Times Book Review
‘Totally English, beautifully written, perfectly in period and wryly funny. More, please!’
Country Life
Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil
It is the 1960s and Canon Sidney Chambers is enjoying his first year of married life with his German bride Hildegard. But life in Grantchester rarely stays quiet for long.
Our favourite clerical detective soon attempts to stop a serial killer who has a grievance against the clergy; investigates the disappearance of a famous painting after a distracting display of nudity by a French girl in an art gallery; uncovers the fact that an ‘accidental’ drowning on a film shoot may not have been so accidental after all; and discovers the reasons behind the theft of a baby from a hospital in the run-up to Christmas, 1963.
In the meantime, Sidney wrestles with the problem of evil, attempts to fulfil the demands of Dickens, his faithful Labrador, and contemplates, as always, the nature of love.
The third in ‘The Grantchester Mysteries’ series – six detective novels spanning thirty years of British history – these four longer stories are guaranteed to delight the many fans of Canon Sidney Chambers.
‘We should welcome him to the ranks of classic detectives’
Daily Mail
‘There is no denying the winning charm of these artfully fashioned mysteries’
Independent
‘Runcie is emerging as Grantchester’s answer to Alexander McCall Smith … The book brings a dollop of Midsomer Murders to the Church of England, together with a literate charm of its own: civilized entertainment, with dog-collars’
Spectator
www.bloomsbury.com/JamesRuncie
East Fortune
Jack Henderson, estranged from his ex-wife and grown-up daughters, is involved in a horrific accident. His younger brother Douglas begins an affair with a woman he barely knows, risking everything. And Angus, the eldest of the Henderson boys, finds himself suddenly in freefall having unexpectedly been laid off from his job.
As the three brothers head to their childhood home in East Fortune for their annual summer gathering, they brace themselves against sibling rivalries and parental expectations. East Fortune is a moving story about life and love, chance and hope, and how families survive.
‘This gripping novel has only one major flaw – it was far too short – I wanted at least another 200 pages of these people and their lives’ Victoria Hislop
‘East Fortune is wonderfully alive. James Runcie has written a rich, subtle, and often funny book’
Daily Mail
‘He is the simple chronicler of English post-war life, using irony and understatement to lay bare the patterns of ordinary life’
Sunday Telegraph
Canvey Island
It is 1953 in Canvey Island. Len and Violet are at a dance. Violet’s husband George sits and watches them sway and glide across the dance floor, his mind far away, trapped by a war that ended nearly ten years ago. Meanwhile, at home, a storm rages and Len’s wife Lily and his young son Martin fight for their lives in the raging black torrent. The night ends in a tragedy that will reverberate through their lives. This poignant novel follows the family’s fortunes from the austerity of the post-war years to Churchill’s funeral, from Greenham Common to the onset of Thatcherism and beyond, eloquently capturing the very essence of a transforming England in the decades after the war. It is a triumph of understated emotion, a novel about growing up and growing old, about love, hope and reconciliation.
‘Runcie has captured the truth about love ... Beautifully done’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A tender, intimate account of post-war England which left me both wistful and elated ... So engaging, so well-shaped and so unsparingly, generously truthful’ Jim Crace
‘Runcie’s third novel is a funny, epic, moving story of Thameside folk ... Canvey Island is a beautifully observed, tragi-comic work’
What’s On
The Discovery of Chocolate
The Colour of Heaven
Canvey Island
East Fortune
The Grantchester Mysteries
Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death
Sidney Chambers and The Perils of the Night
Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil
First published in Great Britain 2015
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2015 by James Runcie
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ISBN 978 1 4088 6221 6
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